


Before & After

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Falling In Love, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 05:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11155374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: He remembered that he always loved him. But he couldn't remember when he fellin lovewith him.





	Before & After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aithilin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/gifts).



“Black, blacker, or blackest?”

Noctis almost answered before he truly heard the words. He glared up at Ignis, arms dropping back down to his sides before he perpetuated the vexing smile haunting his advisor’s lips. Which was an effort in futility because Ignis laughed, nevertheless.

“Alright, alright,” he deferred. “No teasing. I can see that you’re taking this quite seriously.”

“For once?” Noctis snorted, thumbing through the ties draped over Ignis’s arm.

“For once. I must say, I’m impressed.”

“Please, don’t be. There’s nothing impressive about getting dressed,” Noctis grumbled.

“On the contrary. Impressing the Accordon ambassador requires an even more nuanced skill than sword-fighting or warp-striking. Impeccable attire only refines that skill.”

“Now who’s taking this too seriously?”

Ignis observed the prince as he made his choice in neck-wear. He held the silk against his vest and examined the contrast in the mirror, brow furrowed deep as he contemplated the two shades. Ignis forced himself not to say that Noctis would look good in anything. Such a compliment would only fluster his already delicate decision-making process – as well as it was hardly an appropriate observation to make from a valet to his liege.

It was difficult not to, especially as of late. Ignis found that he was catching himself, more and more often, staring for a moment too long as Noctis finished pulling on a fresh shirt at the end of his sessions with Gladio. Or feeling his lips part on the cusp of speaking the truth about how radiant he looked in the soft, golden lighting of Prompto’s recent candid shots. Or forcing his arm from around his back once they were safely through a crowd and Noctis crooked that grin at him, grateful for the aid, but confident that he could walk a straight line on his own.

Ignis couldn’t pin-point the exact moment in time where his regard for the prince had crept far along the trellis of their friendship to bloom as something far different. Different, yet still some of the same. The things he’d admired about Noctis for decades didn’t strengthen more than they already were – they had always been the strongest he could ever forge them into being. Rather, a different shade had tinted the lens he saw them through.

He remembered when his chest had filled with pride as he watched Noctis master the warp-strike after his exclusive training with the Kingsglaive elite. And he remembered when the clouds that buoyed that smile had heated with something that wasn’t pride, but was of no greater or lesser value to it. Just one shade different.

He remembered the smirk that he’d allowed himself to make on the occasions he made Noctis laugh. Simplistic in its friendliness and entirely self-indulgent. Until it started to indulge in the sight of Noctis’s open-mouthed grin, as well. Until he felt the teased curl of his lips softening while Noctis turned his face away to regain his composure.

He remembered the before and the after, but he couldn’t remember the change. It could have been years ago or it could have been a day ago. It could have happened when they moved in together. It could have happened between the casual intimacies of sharing the same space. Of learning each other’s rhythm beyond the walls of the Citadel’s monitored compartments. Of having coffee timed to the belated sleeping habits of a prince plagued by nightmares Ignis had never seen or heard of until he was only a mattress away.

Or it could have happened the day before, when Ignis’s palm had warmed on Noctis’s shoulder, rousing him from a collapse over the documents he’d been tasked with studying for tonight’s event. Maybe it had happened one hour ago, coming into the dressing room to find an exposed chest, shrugging into a black dress-shirt that defined skin as pale and faulted as the moon beaming throughout the lengthening nights.

“What do you think?” Noctis asked into his meandering thoughts. “Stick with black? Or go with blackest?”

Noctis struggled with a smile, the nerves that he’d been failing to conceal all afternoon making his lips tremble. Ignis wanted to steady them. Take them between thumb and forefinger. Tilt them up and press upon them. Shock them still, then melt them into ease. Slip his arm around his waist, draw him to his chest, and turn his face to take him deeper. Soothe the knots of tension from his tongue like knuckles in his back. Like hands along his sides and beneath his shirt and between the sheets.

“Black.”

Noctis sighed in relief, breath shuddering and igniting the growing fantasy entertaining itself inside of Ignis’s head. Noctis worked the tie beneath his collar, silk whispering under silk, and Ignis had to set the rejects hanging on his arm aside, lest he find a better use for them around the prince’s wrists.

It was becoming dangerous, this afterimage that had tinted his glasses. The more he saw Noctis through it, the more difficult it became to control. Innocuous gestures that he’d watched Noctis make all of his life without ever glancing twice at them were suddenly captivating. The little peek of teeth nestling into his lower lip as he adjusted the tie. The crook of his knee when standing in one spot for too long stiffened the damaged muscles. The light brush of fingers beneath the fringe of his hair. Displacing raven strands that refused to be tamed.

The motions ceased, but the enchantment didn’t shatter. There was still so much movement to the stillness of his body. The imperceptible quakes beneath his skin, caressed by the sleeves of expensive black silk. The shimmer to his eyes as he dreaded the reflection fretting back at him. The close-lipped panic that was wailing through the silence.

“You’re ready for this, Noct.”

Noctis glanced at him, doubt turning down the corners of his lips and the slant of his brow. Ignis remembered when the only thing he had desired was to know the right thing to say to turn those strokes skyward again. And he remembered when his desires had multiplied, expanding into endless venues of possibility. Anything – not just mere words – to make him smile again.

“I’m not sure that I am. This isn’t just a party that I can drink my way into faking that I’m good at being a prince. This is an official meeting. A _televised_ conference that billions of people can watch over and over again. One wrong word could ruin everything. I could embarrass the entire country just by forgetting that the secretary of Altissia is not the same person as the senator of Accordo.”

“ _Noctis_.”

Ignis reached out for him. Planted his hands upon his shoulders and turned him away from the reflection that had damned him for so many years. He forced his eyes onto his face. Made him see anything other than what was expected of him. Distract the nerves that Ignis desperately wanted to kiss away. He prayed to the Six that Noctis didn’t feel the shiver that passed through his arms as the prince pursed those lips together.

“You can do this. You’re more than prepared. Just follow your father’s lead and you’ll be fine. Take your time. You’re in no rush. These political news channels love it when these things run long. Gives them more things to guess wrong about.”

Noctis coughed up a fleeting laugh. It dove into Ignis’s heart and hooked in deep. He was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to let Noctis go.

“Thanks, Iggy,” Noctis murmured, reaching up to touch his wrist. “Better find a decent jacket to go with this bravado.”

Ignis smiled, and he wasn’t sure if it was the right one – the one he allowed Noctis to see, and not the one he hid from his skittering stare. He unlocked his hands from his shoulders, daring to smooth them along the wrinkles of fabric above Noctis’s taut shoulders.

“I’ll still be here when you’re ready.”

 _I’ll always be here_ , he wanted to say as Noctis scurried to the coat rack in the center of the room. _I’ll be here when you’re ready to take the throne and silence all those wagging tongues with your grace and your wit and your beauty. I’ll be here when you’re scared of the ancient relics that are far too heavy for you to carry. I’ll be here to tell you that you’re perfect no matter what jacket you choose to wear. I’ll be here to take it off of you when the pretending is done. When you want the comfort of another touch. When you want the praise and the worship that I know you deserve and desire, but are too afraid to ask for._

_I’ll still be here when you’re ready to hear that I love you._


End file.
